Scurge: Hive: Recall
by Lord Obsidious
Summary: A novelization of the Scurge: Hive game and the events that occurred in the story.  A bounty hunter is sent to a remote planet to salvage technology from a research lab in distress, knowing little about the alien 'organism' that it was studying.
1. Prologue: Caught in One's Mind

**Scurge: Hive: Recall**

Notes: This fan fiction is being done, as the title might suggest, on the story that for the Scurge: Hive, which was made by the awesome third-party studios known as Orbital Media (Who, subsequently, created Racing Gears Advanced). Now why, may some ask, do a story on a story that was already made? There are obviously people who already know the answer, but for those who are scratching their heads a bit, this is to flesh out the story more; reveal what emotions may run through the main protagonist, make actual character development, and give depth to the world of Scurge, such as explanations on technologies, creatures,etc. Stuff that the game just didn't touch upon, and in a sense, I'm doing what Bungy and Microsoft did for Halo, making books linked to the games.

There, I gave an explanation to people just in case there's some kind of copy right problem, which i don't think there should be, but this is my first time applying a story to Also, try to bear in mind that this story will be done more closely to what was said in the instruction booklet, and less from what was actually said in the game (That mostly being said in the game presentation). I'm planning not to show all of the boss fights, as that would probably just get monotonous; I will, however, include whatever is important to the plot. Finally, unlike in the game, I'll be putting more characters in it to make it livelier, as having the main protagonist walking around simply killing a bunch of baddies just doesn't work. After all, I want to make a story and not a game; this, in a sense, could be one of those "What if"s, and my own portrayal of what could have happened on her mission (Envision it like an alternate story).

Prologue: Caught in One's Mind

The scientist's mind pulsed with panic, which coursed within every single strand of thought that raced throughout his brain; just like the adrenaline pulsing through his infected bloodstream; and just like the pulsing sensation that continuously beat throughout almost his _entire_ body as though he were a human drum.

Everything had been so sudden, so _synchronous_, it was frightening; a nightmare gone real. He was having a hard enough time trying to process what was happening in the Biocore complex with his mind full of anxiety.

He had almost been overwhelmed by a gaggle of specimens, malfunctioning droids -- were they _malfunctioning_ droids? -- and, to top it off, a mix energy beings; all in one near-swarming handful. They all came upon him while he was trying to fix a glitchy computer, and he could still feel the bights, energy blasts and searing heat that attempted to tear and burn through his suit; and he was thankful that he had it on.

He had attempted to close the doors in order to prevent his pursuers from following him, but it wouldn't respond -- _What the heck, malfunctioning too?_ He had to settle for loosing his attackers. Thankfully, they weren't faster than he was.

As he made his run, he heard the sound of metal being torn echo throughout the complex like a great howling beast. His heart skipped a beat, knowing whatever that sound was, it wasn't a good sign. He felt completely clueless and _frightened_ at what was going on, he wanted to contact his fellow comrades, but he had taken his transmitter off and never had the thought of grabbing it in the panic of being killed..

But what his biggest worry was what was going on _inside_ of him, and if he didn't reach a decontamination pad, he'd be screwed over royally.

He had made it to the central nexus, and he had thankfully shaken off his attackers. He was hoping to see other people there; scientists, engineers, security. But all he was greeted by was the glow of the six, white orbs, each which appeared to be held aloft but a transparent beam of light, and surrounded the lonely transport nexus like monuments worshiping a great deity -- and the sound of yells and gauntlet fire echoing from the other door ways.

He barely stood there for a moment, only guessing that everyone else was having the same problem as he had; he only gave a brief thought to what was truly occurring in the complex, as the rate of the pulsing sensation drumming throughout his entire body had increased, and was now pounding through his entire body. He could feel his strength weakening with every passing second, and panic and his survival instincts had now taken full control of him.

At least, for a few shorts steps it did. Before he got to the door he was going for, he heard a loud bang and an explosion came out of one of the doors at the far end of the large room he was in. The scientist's attention was momentarily yanked to the sound of the explosion, noticing that the entire door at the far end was smoking and completely blocked by debris.

He only blinked once at what happened, bemused, but in that one short blink, it was enough time for a large entity to come out of the door beside him and raises its body large body upright; completely overshadowing the scientist.

The loom of impending doom seem to sap all of the panic out of the scientist, only allowing him to slowly turning around and come face-to-_faces_ with the blood-red mass before him. It's bodily shape and swirling tentacles, some which morphed their ends into dark red hooks, made it almost look like an oversized germ. Yet it had a face, two completely blue eyes that showed themselves amongst its grotesque eyelids and a gaping mouth with a sharp set of teeth about it. It used two thick tentacles, almost like arms, to stand upright, like a human would.

The scientist stared in shock not at the danger of this creature or that he was about to be killed, but the faces of his friend that were sticking out its body, opened mouthed and their eyes completely glazed over as if staring into a deep horizon filled with horror. He suddenly realized what was truly happening now, and that short realization was all he was able to think before the creature snapped its hooked tentacles him.

The scientist didn't have the will in him to scream; if he could scream at all. All four of his appendages were by grabbed several tentacles with strength far beyond his own, and his attempt get free wasn't _even_ an attempt at all. He was hoisted into the air like he was nothing, and he was yanked towards the creature's body.

His back made first contact with the soft, near-gooey body. A pulsing sensation like that of a heart -- like the sensation pounding through his body -- beat from the creature's body, through his suit and into his body. Smaller tentacles morphed out of the creature's body and wrapped around his; legs, arms, throat. They even got into small crevices within his suit's hard armor and gauntlets.

As he was surround more and more by the creature's own mass and was, in fact_ sinking_ into its body, the pulsing from the creature's body matched that of his own, and he was starting to become one with it. For a moment, he even thought his body was melting into the creatures, but that thought then vanished, as if erased or pushed away.

The man was still conscious, but it was like his own _individual_ thoughts were gradually being sapped from his mind. All he was registering was what his eyes saw, and what he saw was metal grating, which was moving. No, it wasn't moving, he was.

He willed his eyes to look up, and noticed people -- no_, obstacles_, he saw them as the thought being poured into his mind out of no where -- came running out of the other doors ways. He didn't hear them, nor did he give any recognition to the expressions on their faces. They were all just impasses to him now, though looking at them seemed to bring up weak images within his head.

Lights began to dance within his vision, and flickered about just like those weak images. The images that were of his friends and family, images that he would have cared about, and yet, he no longer gave any recognition to them; ignoring them, focusing on another task.

He only gave recognition to the thoughts that flowed through him from someone else, and the only thing he could think about now -- the only thing _they _could think about now -- was _escape_.

His vision was then basked in white light.


	2. Chapter 1: Rude Awakening

**Chapter 1: Rude Awakening**

The eyes woke to the blinding lights and the ears were filled with a blaring message alarm.

She swore in surprise and shifted her eyes into the pillows. _Dumb lights_, she thought, clearly remembering that she had turned them off. They've been glitchy with her for the past few days, going on and off whenever they pleased, as though they had a life of their own. She needed to remember to get them checked – assuming she did have the free time when she _did_ remember.

Now didn't appear to be one of those times to check.

She groaned and lifted her head off of the pillow, calling in a groggy voice, "Magellan, shut off the damn alarm and tell me who's the message is from." _Please let it be one of my friends_, she hoped, but was somehow doubtful.

"High priority message from Confederation Military board, offering job request," the A.I. replied from the comms in its normal, robotic tone.

_Dang, I wanted the extra sleep. Oh well, job priorities first._ "Fun," Jenosa said out loud, lifting herself out of the covers in her still semi-sleepy state. _Damn, I could use some coffee right about now_, she thought while stretching her limbs out to get her awake as much as possible.

Her body had a fine build and physique, and her body posture revealed that she kept herself well exercised and fit. Her red hair was a bit scruffy, as always, and there was the added factor of all of the hair making up her long, flowing ponytail that reached down towards her thighs. Those who knew her profession occasionally wondered how she did her job with such hair – and at the very most, why she never shortened it on her own time.

In all honesty, she'd preferred letting it grow on it's own; and that had been a habit since childhood. She never liked cutting or having her haircut for some reason, and rather enjoyed it growing long, and simply fashioned it into a pony when it became a pain. That, and it grew with a vengeance, and she found it pointless keep cutting it if it kept coming back faster than one can blink. Her hair got sliced and diced on missions as enough as it was anyway.

And no matter how hard one looked about her face and youthful eyes, you could never see a single sign, like a scar or cold look, which told you she was a bounty hunter. She had a face like any other ordinary pedestrian. It was mostly when meeting a contact did she reveal her professional attitude and this "Let's get this job done," added with a dash of adventure, enthusiasm on her missions.

Some people might even think her to be 'weak' with certain parts of her less "bounty hunter" attitude, such, as demonstrate only minutes before, her want for extra sleep. But she'd simply ignore them, knowing, to herself and experience, that strengths and weakness were both the same – all that mattered was getting the job done, staying alive with all your limbs intact, and getting paid.

It was the fact that there could be such 'go-talkers' and wannabe-fight-hers about the universe that she chose a more discrete but professional path. She didn't have to worry about there being too many eyes on her, considering that she could easily stand out in the crowd if people knew her face; or head, at that matter.

Despite her discretion, though, she couldn't stop the occasional vague words of her professional attitude from flying about; and after she complete a couple of difficult missions, they did. An ear catches wind of these words, and people with their own ideas start fishing the waters for her. It shouldn't be surprising that one particular contact that she worked for was, in fact, a Major for the Confederation Military, and was merely posting a few jobs to get her to poke her head out of the waters.

That was how she winded up working for the Military so often; if it was any client that appreciated discretion like they do, she had yet to work for them. God hell knows if there was anyone out there who enjoyed keeping his or her true colors in the shadows. They kept her true identity disclosed from her, and she disclosed everything she knew about them from everyone else. A fair deal for her added with a moderate source of income – good jobs weren't exactly apples in a tree.

Giving the final stretch, she walked over to a small, active consol within her room that read, as Magellan said, "High Priority Message from Confederation Military." "Well, lets see what chores Major Armitage and Commander Kozan have in store for me today," she said, to herself as she opened the message.

**Decoding Protocol: 2A75E6**

**Attention: Jenosa Arma**

**Hunter Designation: Q4-75E1JA**

**Target: Confederation Research Lab 56, Planet Inos**

**Briefing: A distress signal was received 48 hours earlier from this high security research lab. Subsequent attempts to establish communication have proven futile. Request for a data retrieval mission. Meet at Brin-Talos station for further briefing of objectives and the coordinates of planet Inos.**

**Commander Kozan**

Jenosa blinked, bemused, "Odd, what happened to my usual contact, Major Armitage." Major Armitage was the person who had gotten a hold of her in the first place, and it was him that usually briefed her on her missions. Never had she been told to meet at one of the military's stations. Usually the Military wanted to keep things as close niche as possible, sending a single person to brief her so as and allowing them to meet at one of their facilities, where valuable and harmful information could be stored.

Plus, Armitage gave her a lot of invaluable information. As funny as it seemed, he was of her more favorite contacts, as other clients were sometimes clumsy at giving the proper information that she demanded.

Then again, she thought, she'd probably meet the guy at the station itself, though it still seemed strange to meet him at one of their facilities; if anyone else, at that. She only mentally shrugged at the thought, not about to let a simple oddity to sway from not taking the job. Sometimes stuff happened.

Yet, a little voice was nagging her in the back of the head—many often say that when you get sent to a lab on a planet that no one's ever heard of, it's usually a bad sign.

Omen or no bad omen, she wasn't about to chicken out of what could be a possibly well-paying job. She had her A.I. set course for the station while she got dressed and ready.

Jenosa walked through the metallic hallways of the Confederation Military command center known as Brinn-Talos station. The station was basically a kind of HQ or outpost where intelligence of every outgoing Military project and action was connected to. The station was pretty big, and it made Jenosa wonder if this place had any weapon stations to defend itself. She didn't see any guns visually, but there could ones hidden, standing by to pop out and show that a floating space building can bear it's own teeth when needed.

She wore gray pants and a shirt that, combined, looked like a single jump suit. Their design made sure that they didn't look like bathing suit, with the lines running down the back and the belt-like strap for the pants, but the tightness could make some people think she needed a new sense of fashion.

Surprisingly enough, she actually liked these kinds of clothes, not because of the more professional they gave her in this place, but because of their flexibility. When it came to actual hunting Jenosa really didn't have much strength, and thus made up for it with her dexterity, acrobatics and quick tactical thinking, and these clothes gave her a lot of freedom others just didn't have.

That, and the material had some minor resistant to energy weapons, and more so to some physical attacks like knives. It wasn't heavy stock armor clothing that could withstand an entire magazine or battery, but it proved to protect her hide long enough for her to escape danger.

Making it easily to the receptionist room, she was expecting to see the beaming image of a military Major who was around his 40s with dirty brown hair, a short beard to match, and attentive that were locked like a scanner at the door way. Instead, she was baffled to simply a few technicians giving her side glances in their work, and probably wondering what a none-military person with the stance and air of a professional hunter was doing here; and, at the desk, a rather nervous secretary sweating as though he was having his own invisible shower.

Jenosa scanned the room and it's few occupants for any high-ranking military officer. There was none, and he couldn't help but feel that it would be most out of Armitage's style, as he always picked more public but private places; and yet she felt it strange that he should have at least been there to greet her. Something was wrong.

"U-umm, are you – would you happen to be designated hunter Q4-75E1JA," came the voice of the person she hoped it was _not_ coming from. Indeed, her mind wasn't playing tricks as she saw the nervous secretary stand up and hold his nervous, sweaty face at her in a hopeful manner.

She made a bemused blink, and responded, knowing that they called her by her designation for security reasons, "Yeah, that's me," unless you haven't been told by Armitage about my hair doe. Something about a lab you wanted me to go check on?" she added. The Major always said her hair made her easy to spot and identify, even in a big crowd. IT wasn't like she added any of those fancy chemicals to, and generally disliked the idea of doing that anyway; all she did was let it grow, put it into ponytail and wash it from time to time like any good person should.

"Ahhh, good, I've been told to wait for you. P-please, c-come this way, we'll discuss the details and your currency in more private quarters," the secretary beckoned towards one of the doors near him. The man, instead of sighing relief as she expected him to in such a situation, where you were waiting and hoping for a specific person to show up, seem to only get more nervous, as though he was about to enter an exam.

This caused a couple of question to spark in Jenosa's mind, one in particular that yelled in a blaring voice was, _Who the hell hired this guy?_ If they weren't going to speak through Armitage, they should have at least taken the liberty choosing a person who could do decent business. Anxiety and nervousness showed that you could be a liability to your assigned task, and this guy had 'liability' written all over him. Sending out a guy like him was what she called sloppy, and the military was meant to be anything _but_ sloppy.

As she made her leave from the lobby, she couldn't help but notice out of the corner of her eye how much attention the technician was giving her than the broken conduit. Perhaps it had to do with who she was, that she was a hunter, or even her looks. On the contrary, she was never one of those trés sexy women, but some of her friends had sported that her face and hair could occasionally catch a man's eye. She had no clue what was so eye catching about herself; hell, in her childhood, her mom kept telling her hair was a mess and that she needed brush it – and she barely brushed it during the present.

Of course she made sure it didn't look like a hurricane had struck it, but she really just liked to leave it take whatever shape it wanted.

Hair tendencies aside, the man could have been interested for any number of reasons she thought up, even a combination. Yet she could not but help feel that when she mentioned the word 'lab' that the man's expression had changed from intrigued to worried. Perhaps she was just imagining things, as she wasn't really giving the man only a sliver of her attention, but the image strangely bugged her. She couldn't help but feel that the guy knew some "need to know vital information" for her mission.

Not that it mattered, as she was about to get the any vital information from this Mr. Sweat-a-lot—and if she didn't, well, screw the job.

Entering a kind of debriefing room, the man started slowly, "So, I assume your were given your objects in the message."

"'Course. Data retrieval of some kind. Mind filling me in on the juicy details," she said with an odd enthusiasm. Hey, you couldn't do a job if you didn't like it.

"Well, it's simple. I give you the coordinates of the planet, and you salvage whatever valuable data and experimental technology you can."

Jenosa frowned, "When I meant 'details' I didn't mean redefining obvious objectives, I meant giving me information that would be vital to the success of my mission. I wouldn't be a very useful bounty hunter if I was ran into a platoon of people while you knew about it; and mind you, I prefer to keep every limb in my body intact."

"Ummm, what kind of details?" the man said, becoming so nervous Jenosa thought he was going to create sound from his very with all his shaking.

She gave an irritated growl, having a difficult time in asking the man, "Why the hell where you hired to brief me in the first place?" Instead, trying to keep a good job opportunity open, she responded, "Ok, since I don't think a crash course would be the best option, I'll just ask you some question and you answer."

"Question one: Do you have any idea why the distress beacon was sent?"

The man seemed extremely hesitant in what to say. There was a brief silence before he simply said, "Ummm, no."

"So, you're telling me you have no clue in what's _possibly_ went down on that backwater planet," she said, furrowing her brow. "For all I know it could have been raid by some space pirates, and they'd probably have taken everything, there for making my objectives pretty useless."

"Nono," the man responded quickly, "it's highly unlikely that the lab was attacked by a group. It's completely remote and in the middle of Confederation space; far away from the border."

"Ok, if you're so confident, then give me an idea – a possible suggestion – in what happened."

The man seemed to be unable to answer, almost gripped by some unknown fear. He then gulped and merely said, "I – I can't tell."

Jenosa gave an exasperated sigh. This briefing was taking way too long and was way too much of a pain in the ass for her; details and objectives were almost always given in a jiffy. IT was almost like this guy didn't want her to know something…classified. "Can you at least tell me what they're researching on?"

"I'm sorry, but that's classified information."

"Excuse me, but it won't be very classified when I get to it; or when it gets me in the hands of some maniac. This is the last straw sweaty, either you give me the information that I demand, or I screw the job."

The man, as if trying to find a solution to his predicament, looked all about the place, seeming obviously pressured; for what reason, Jenosa couldn't guess. It looked like a loosing battle, but then the man looked at the piece of paper in his hand, as though it was his final trump card. He unfolded it and revealed it to Jenosa's face.

It was her payment contract. At first, she was slightly irritated by this action, as she had no interest in taking a look at the contract yet, but a particular part of it had managed to snare her attention. She grabbed the contract to take a better look at the specific spot, her eyes giving a wide, incredulous stare. She read the rest of the contract, the fine print and even verified the signature. It was authentic to the core, authentic and almost enigmatic enough to be a priceless relic from an extinct race.

Her eyes turned to the man, his face nearly filled with a pleading expression. "This is a simple data retrieval mission, no?"

Only after a bit more discussion, the secretary, who was still nervous and sweaty, but had calmed quite a bit, told her she needed some very special, state-of-the-art mission gear before she left. Jenosa was quite curious to see what kind of gear she needed before she left. And more specifically…

"Wait, why does it seem like I require this gear before I land?" Jenosa asked.

"T-that gear, you'll need it to enter to the lab and deal with the-" the man cut himself off, as though he was worried about saying too much.

"Deal with the 'what'?" was probably what the redhead would have said, but she thought it was a waste of her time. When she saw how much the contract paid, there was no way in hell she was letting a massive money opportunity slip by her hands. Jobs like these were almost non-existent, which was an enigma that she just didn't feel fit in right, even for the military. It was like she was missing something in the big picture.

She didn't care though. The pay was big enough to overshadow the abnormality, and she had been in some tuff situation where details didn't completely help. Hell, so long as she was getting some kind of gear meant for this mission, she was fine doing the job without having most of her other questions answered.

As t hey walked down the corridor, it was like the true colors of the station were being revealed to her. The secretary office and lobby was only the tip of the iceberg, as Jenosa had never really gone that deep into the station itself what things were really like. Some regular, steel station walls, lights, doors, and a desk was all she witnessed on her few visits to the place; but in the core, it was as though the station had a beating heart.

In one section, she had to go through an area full of computers and other technological pieces; activation and computer consoles of all sorts were alive and active, constantly reading all sorts of sensor data, showing them with text, numbers, vertical and horizontal bars and all sorts of other shapes that blinked, flashed, shrunk and moved in an almost rhythmic pattern. Even machines and the lights they emitted pulsed as though they were essentially breathing life into the station and its gray lifeless walls who's hue matched that of Jenosa's clothes; so well, that, in her eyes, she could almost pass as a part of the space born building.

The hallways themselves were bustling with activity like a colony of ants. People were going to and fro, doing their assigned tasks, passing her and the secretary as they did, giving short glances of curiosity at her presence, knowing that she was not a part of this station's crew. A smirk of joy rose at the attention she was getting, knowing that most of these people had no clue she was bounty hunter employed by Kozan. It was almost comical how much the Military used her and yet the general lot of them knew squat about her.

Going through much of the station, Jenosa wondered if she might actually discover some skeletons in the Military's closet. She doubted it, and it wasn't like she cared. She wanted no part of some kind of military political scam, as getting caught in one could lead unnecessary, fatal head injuries. She just wanted to do the job, get paid, and keep living her own taste of freedom.

The finally reached a hallway filled with what appeared to be cryotubes on both sides. The only other person inside the room was a skinny technician who was taping one of the 'cryotubes'. He noticed the two and turned his head to them, greeting them, "Ahh, she must that professional bounty hunter that I was told to prep a suit for, no?"

The secretary nodded, saying nervously, "I suppose I'll let you two and the suit get acquainted."

"That indeed."

The secretary sighed in relief and left, his apperent-pressuring task having been lifted from his shoulders. Jenosa turned her attention to the technician in front of her, "So, where are these 'suits' that I need so much," she said in eagerness, anxious to see what this tech was all about.

The technician laughed, "You're standing in the room with them," he said, gesturing towards what she suspected to be cryotubes.

Jenosa blinked, bemused, and came more into the room, its atmosphere giving her an eerie sensation, as though she had stepped into an alien ship. Peering through the glass of one of the containers, her first glance made her think the guy was actually kidding her; it was only the fact that the body of the suit had no head and face that it made her realize she was actually staring at a manufactured piece of tech – tech that she had never seen before.

The suit looked like some kind of blue, rubbery wetsuit with light-blue lines etched parallel with one another on the stomach and arms; the lines looked to be a different material than the darker blue type, and it was as though they were almost giving off some kind of light. Sections such as the chest area, the forearms and almost the complete bottom part of the legs – making them look like a pair of boots – were donned with a pearl white, armor-hard material, and it looked as though the blue material was actual an entity wearing them like a knight would. One of the reasons why it looked like this was because, despite the material's appearance, the suit seemed to hold the shape of a humanoid man on it's own – and it was one of the reasons why Jenosa had first mistaken it as an actual guy.

As if he read her mind, the technician said, with a laugh, "Almost thought there was sleeping man inside there, didn't ya."

"Ya, you got me there. But why do you need to keep a suit inside a container like this? To keep it in mint condition?" she said with a drop of sarcasm at the end. "And why do I need it anyway?" she added.

He laughed again, "Well, what you're looking at here is a bio-suit – like one of those suits meant for biohazardous areas, which could be filled with a virus or disease or the like. And as for the reason why it's kept in his tank, it's meant to keep the suit charged and prepped for interface; the tank itself it filled with concentrated free-floating energy particles that we walk through every day, and those light blue lines on the suit, like a pore, take in those particles as though they were actually oxygen to it."

"Woah woah," Jenosa said with some surprise, "you make it sound like the suit's alive. Don't tell me I have to wear something with another mind connecting to my head."

"Ha! Not at all. Admittedly, most of the suit is made of a kind of organic matter, matter that probably isn't like our cellular structure but alive in a similar manner, and the energy that it takes in is meant to keep it from, well, dying out. But, in no way does the suit have a mind of it's own; it's more like any other suit – well, umm, a bit more than I suit I guess. You could almost put it like a biological add-on to your body; technically, you're its mind."

Jenosa eyed the suit, studying the detail of it, as if trying to find an ambiguous answer to an even more ambiguous question. "I guess that sort of explains the rubbery material. Still, it really doesn't look like any of those bio-suits that I usually see these days. I mean, does this come with a helmet, and what's with the arms and legs," she asked, indicating the white, plate material, or devices, on the limbs.

"Quaint, what the lab here deals with isn't an ordinary organic virus, and we have – umm – yet to develop a helmet that is suited to deal with this virus. As for everything else, well, you are going to wear the suit, so why don't you find out for yourself." The man entered a code into one of the side panels of the container and the glass slid upwards with an eerie, buzzing hiss.

Despite what the man had said, Jenosa could not help but feel that this suit had a sleeping purpose, somehow aware of itself and yet mindless at the same time, waiting in its dormant state for someone to fit their body – their mind – into it. Someone to fill in an empty spot inside of it and give it commands; for someone to finally use it and give a feeling of purpose.

Tentatively, yet curiously, she reached into the container to take the suit. Only halfway there did she feel a tingle sensation move all about her hand, stopping briefly at it; she then realized it was possible the concentrated amount of 'energy' stuff that the man talked about. Grabbing the suit by the armpits, she lifted out of the container; it was exceedingly lighter than she expected.

It was also warm, warm like a human's body, if not perhaps warmer. She knew that the suit hadn't been a in a cryofreeze chamber, but any person would expect a suit or other piece of material be at room temperature; she also remembered the bit about the energy that the guy talked about, and she assumed it was warm from being inside that container. In fact, the heat and texture of the rubbery part combine almost made it feel like she was touching actual skin.

Jenosa looked at the suit in her hands, unable to figure out how to put it on. There didn't seem to be any area, niche or hole where she could slip her body into it. She was puzzled at how anyone could get this thing on.

As if reading her mind, the technician said "Here," and put each hand on each shoulder of the suit, where there was a clip that appeared to be was holding the 'breast plate' together. He unclipped it, and then put his hands in the neck hole and stretched it – what at first appeared as a pipe-sized hole now became a hole near the size and width of her body.

The man bent down to allow her to put her feet in first, and slipping into the suit, Jenosa felt like she was going through the most surreal moment of her life – which, on a surprisingly near-future factor, it wasn't. The same tingling sensation that she felt in the container was also felt inside the suit, but it was ten times as that, as though the suit was filled with static that you could probably see flying about. This time, however, it didn't just make contact with her skin, it was _sinking_ into her body, and it was spreading through out every cell of her body like wild fire –like a virus. Her shins were all the way in and it had already spread through her entire legs, with the top half only feeling a lighter dose.

She didn't let this stop her, though she slightly hesitated, with the man nodding his head in a manner that said, "Go on, it's completely safe." As she slipped the rest of it on, the sensation raced more throughout the rest of her body, and as soon as it reached the back where her spine was, it spread almost instantaneously; it even went strait to her head, brain and eyes. When the suit made contact with her back – not the skin of her back though – she suddenly found herself _connecting_ to a kind of computer, or more to her preferable words, a creature.

The man clipped the breastplates back into place, and for a few seconds, she thought she would either have to teal with a very tight fit on her chest or find a new size, but the breastplate itself stretched outwards to accommodate for that problem. Even the neck area, which looked a bit tight for her neck, as well as the blue padding that fitted themselves like magnets on the skin of the back, side areas of her jaw, seem to mesh with her body.

She got up from the floor and flexed her body; she had no trouble moving at all. To her surprise, the suit was surprisingly comfortable, if not strange. Actually, it was not like she was actually wearing the suit, or any clothing at all – nor was it like as some people could describe other suits as a "second skin."

The suit, in a sense, _was_ her skin, with only the plates and other white-padded material being like a kind of armor or hardened skin. She had the idea that she could do several other 'movements', like move an extra eye lash or leg, not that it was though she did; more like she could 'move' or 'command' unknown qualities and abilities her body had just acquired. Looking at the dark blue material and light blue lining, she couldn't help but get the idea that she had become an alien, which lightly disturbed her.

"So, how does it feel?" the technician inquired with a smile on his face.

"Well, there are a bunch of ways I can describe this, but I believe 'weird' is the best term. Although," she added, "there really isn't any pain, and, actually, it feels almost neat to move and even think in."

"That weirdness your feeling would happen to be the energy the suit's using to-"

"Interface with my body," Jenosa finished.

The man blinked a bit, "Quite right."

Jenosa made smirk, showing that she too could be quick and witty when she wanted to be.

"I'm little surprised that _you_ don't seemed to be surprised that the suit uses energy itself to act as a kind of nervous system. Nerve cells send electricity as a kind of message throughout each other, but it isn't well know by anyone else for 'simple' energy to relate commands; study over condensed and complex energy creatures show us how this function works, but never has there a technology that uses the same principle in a biological person."

"Excuse me," scoffed Jenosa, "but I failed most of higher education subjects including 'science,' though I can assure that I'm not utterly brainless when it comes to obvious stuff such as electricity and such. Let's just say I wasn't really interested in keeping up with my courses; you guys can make up all sorts of stuff that can make the world loopy for all I care, so long as it doesn't bite me or an entire civilization."

"Which reminds," she added, "does this interface have any kind of side-effects that I have to worry about."

"Not at all," the technician replied with confidence, "the scientists at the lab have used these suits for quite a while, they've never complained about any dizziness or headache, nor have there been any kind of psychological changes."

Jenosa felt relief at hearing this, not just because it dampened her worries that the suit might potentially screw up her body, but also because this guy actually answered her question more directly. And yet, she couldn't help but feel that she was missing on a very crucial piece of information, but she just couldn't put it into a question.

"Now," came the technician, "you _did_ say you wanted – ahhh, I see you already got a hold in activating the projectile gauntlets," he pointed out, noticing one of Jenosa's hands holding bright, light-blue sphere of energy in it, the gauntlets themselves emanating the same colored glow.

She was, in a sense, starting to get one step ahead of this guy. Having her worries lifted, she had a good hunch the interface wasn't probably just for a cozy outfit, and being curious, she decided to 'flex' those mysterious abilities. And low and behold she already found about these "Projectile Gauntlets."

The gauntlets gave her the idea that she had a cylinder wrapped around her arm, even under the impression that the entire suit _was_ her body. In eyesight, though, it looked more oval-esque, nearly encompassing her entire forearm, thankfully leaving her hands free to move almost everywhere; and its shell was, of course, made up the hard white material.

The most notable detail, as if the weapon was supposed to be some kind of bejeweled relic, were these smooth, light blue crystals. Two oval ones were imbedded on each side of the gauntlet, which would be adjacent to the sides of the forearm, and when you looked into them, you could see that they were covering a small vent. A more spherical one was imbedded in the area that was possibly adjacent to the wrist, and it could be noticed that between the crevice of it and the shell that there were metal tubes or 'wires' connecting to it . Even under the gauntlet there were very small, pebble-like crystals precisely dotting the rim of the whole where her hand popped out of.

When she had initiated the gauntlets, it was like her entire body had inhaled air, and it buzzed with a much large energetic, tingling sensation; she guess that energy that she held in her hand was the 'exhale.'

She let go of the energy and is dissipated out of her hand like vapor. "I'm taking this gauntlet is some kind of weapon," she inquired.

"That it is," the man replied, "but unlike regular fire arms, it isn't one of those simple 'point-and-shoot weapons. Instead, you have to actually toss the energy in your hand like it was a baseball. It might be awkward at first, but you'll get used to it. Also, beware that the range for these shots are limited to a short distance, so don't expect to go sniping any time soon; and, finally, be wary of over using the gauntlets too much, as they'll over heat."

"You should note that, despite it's simple-looking nature, the suit has its own data base where you can store data such as maps and the important information that you'll be salvaging. The suit can actually show you this data via neural imaging, where it's actually like you see the data being displayed in your vision like you actually had a kind of HUD – of course, it's really just the suit sending data to the visual part of your brain."

"Bear in mind that this suit also has sensors on it, but pulling up the data wouldn't reveal you anything because it's just ones and zeros – you'll need an program or A.I. to translate for you. Aaaaaaaand you don't, again, have to worry about the interface because the method of how the suit operates is slightly different from that of regular electronics, so it won't be affected by EMPs of the sort and go on the fritz."

Jenosa stared down at her own self, blinking, and bemused at how more this suit was. If everything that the man said was true, and she was positive that this was the truth, then she was bearing her eyes at tech that was well above the usual standard equipment that she received or bought. She clasped a hand on one of her arms in an attempt to discern any kind of metallic hardware hidden within the blue, rubbery material. To her surprise, she could barely squeeze her own arm, less even jab what she felt like was her own skin.

_The hell_, she thought, incredulous at how stiff this material was, as though she was grasping a tree bark instead of rubber. How could this stuff be so hard, so armor-like, and still allow her to flex her arms and legs freely as though she had nothing on? Now _this_ was something that just didn't make any sense in her own laws of physics.

At that instant, she realized something. Her eyes turned to the technician, a smile on her face, "This blue material, it isn't just to, well, protect me from bio-hazardous stuff, it's some kind of body armor, isn't it?"

"That it is," the man said with a nod of pride, "though I can't say it's built for war, the stuff is pretty sturdy."

"So, in other words, what I'm wearing here isn't just a regular bio-suit; it's a suit that's combine multiple platforms," she paused, "You cannot argue this _isn't_ a prototype."

"That I can't. Y'know, for a person who probably failed science, you definitely have a intuitive eye for technology."

"Heh, it runs in the business," she smirked.

"In any case," the man went on, "there's probably more stuff that I could tell you about the suit, but you can probably find out yourself and have a program tell you what it is and how to do it. The suit functions with your mind as thought it were a biological part of you. Of course," he added, "I have to install a program first."

"Would it be possible for you to install a back-up version of my ship's A.I. into this suit. Having a program with more intelligence than a screw and the ability to speak would be real handy."

"Sure thing."

As he and Jenosa prepped to install her A.I., data of the facilities layout and such, played with more of the suit's functions, she couldn't help but feel that everything from the secretary to the pay check to even the suit were all aberrant. She normally didn't receive gear like this, and they rarely gave her any kind of special guns or ammunition, as they knew she could take care of herself, being the resourceful gal she was. Why did they need to give an experimental suit that was HAZMAT and combat suit in one? Why not just give her a regular bio-suit and let her deal with dangers on her own wit and weapons? What was in that lab that made it so important for to wear _this_ suit?

These questions swam in her mind as she waited anxiously to depart for the mission and get that big money contract. She didn't bother asking anyone them, and knew fully well she'd would _find out_ eventually.

Little did she know she was going to regret taking this job when it was too late to abort.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Marooned

As Jenosa ship traveled to her destination – the remote planet known as Inos – she had taken a little time to practice with the gauntlets. The technician said she should, as he told her that other people first using them had trouble trying to place an accurate shot. Perhaps in their arms the gauntlets were unwieldy weapons, but to Jenosa, she had a firms grasp. She barely missed her first target, which was an empty crate she set up in one of the aft storage compartments of her ship.

Nobody could have guess that she had such a good arm; and it came from years of playing dodge ball and tossing grenades.

Even still, the energy projectiles created by the gauntlets didn't reveal anything fancy that caught her eye. They simply nailed the targets like any other gun could, with probably a similar amount of force; the only difference was that it was shorter ranged than most guns, and couldn't be done quickly or instantaneously, which bugged her a bit. Yes, she was quick with the gauntlets, but regular firearms were quicker, and speed was often of the essence to the survival of Jenosa.

She opened an actual crate that was filled with ammunition and a couple of guns and took out her favored type sidearm: a handgun. An energy blaster to say the least; actually, two energy blasters and a belt to hold them in. Light, easy to carry and aim, and could be dual wielded, that what she loved about these kind of guns, and although she would other weapons for the right occasion, handguns were like a tradition to her. Heavy weapons were the contrary for her, as she just didn't have strength to bear with them and they just slowed her down; not say that she didn't use them when other weapons just didn't cut it.

As she flipped one of the guns in her hand, embracing the light weight feel as though it were an old friend, the same burning questions blazed into her head again: _Why this suit?_ She doubted the Military was stupid enough to actually would swap the guns for gauntlets, not that she didn't give credit to their over abundance of brains. But why make these weapons in the first place? she thought.

She tried to think up a couple of reasons. _The guy did say this suit couldn't be affected by EMPs of any kind,_ she pondered, _so I suppose the planet or lab that I'm going has some electronic field disrupting weapons from normally functioning._ Every other reason that she attempted to brainstorm just didn't seem logical to the Military's standards and style.

But then she thought about what the lab was supposed to be working on. She was given barely any information about it, other than the fact that it was a biohazardous, and that she needed this suit to protect her from whatever was in the lab. She was fine as long she didn't have to worry about getting sick, but there were other aspects of the suit that just didn't fit in. That mostly being it acting likes body armor, which really was completely useless for when you were working with germs and viruses.

Nothing she thought up made sense with why she was given this suit, and that disgruntled. She _hated_ having to do missions without barely any details, and it was justified for good reasons; but with her contract, she just had to take the risks. She took risks all the time, and hell, the life of a bounty hunter was a risk itself, and she was fine with that kind of danger. In fact, she kind of enjoyed that aspect of her life, as it kept on her on edge, active and always moving. She never dared to fly herself out and put herself on the top like other wannabe did, always making sure she was ambiguous as possible so she wouldn't be target of them as well as other people; yet the dangers that she did have to go through generated this energy inside of her that she enjoyed.

She sighed, shaking her head, her ponytail dancing with her and she placed her guns in their holsters. She wasn't going to get anywhere with all this thinking, and it seemed best to do what she always did: go down there, find out what she was dealing with, get it out of her way and complete her objectives. _That_ was what she liked to do, not sit around and ponder a question that could be big as the "Meaning of Life" itself. As far as she was concerned, the "Meaning of Life" to her was to wake up, eat, kick some ass, get paid, enjoy your freedom, and then go back to bed.

She decided it was time to head back to the front of her ship. Magellan was in control of the vessel and making sure it was on its destination, and she had a good hunch they were almost there.

The ship that she was one was a slightly modified cruiser, an often standard transport for most people, often that being bounty hunters themselves. People like Jenosa would often get newer, more recent models, while others would rather settle with the same ship and simply modify it. Some have even come call their ship their own, treating as though it were a person, and of course, there are those who simply use ships to get around and actually have a home to go to.

Jenosa's home was, well, herself; in other words, she really didn't have a home, not that she lost hers or couldn't make one; she just didn't have the need for one. She was constantly one the move, roaming about and visiting good friends in her free time, occasionally checking into a hotel, though any the ship she flew on often acted like a home. More than often, she would check into the same apartment a lot, but she felt there really wasn't anything for her to truly call 'home', as she a home was defined by a was unique comfort and, in a sense, a place to call their own.

The front of the ship, which was so spacious that looked more like a bridge more than a cockpit, if one could call it a cockpit at all; and spacious was something that Jenosa enjoyed, as she liked have a lot of room to move around in. She took notice that ship was no longer in transit, an earth-like planet in view, albeit a bit smaller than the actual earth.

"I'm taking this is Inos," Jenosa stated, peering through the glass of her ship.

"Affirmative," her A.I. replied simply.

"Y'know, it doesn't look like some of t hose uglier dust up, terra formed planets we sometimes get sent to," she commented out loud, knowing that nobody including her A.I. would respond, but it always made her feel good when to say her thoughts out loud when she was alone. It annoyed her to keep her own thoughts bottle up inside of her, and, despite her profession, she had always been outward person.

In which case, the planet that she was looking down at appeared serene and beautiful, if not perhaps exotic, and it had this atmosphere of isolation, as though nobody could find it unless given the exact location. After giving a swift check to the sensor data, it looked to her that she and this little remote planet were completely alone.

Perhaps it was what this planet held that was garnering all those researchers' attention, she thought, knowing that the most exotic places could contain extremely deadly critters. Well, the only way to find out was go down and salvage whatever she could.

"Magellan, can you lock onto that research facilities beacon?" she asked with a hint of command in her voice.

"Processing…locating beacon…beacon located. Establish geosynchronization with orbit of Inos?"

"Yeah, you know the rest Magellan. Land this puppy."

"Affirmative, establishing geosynchronization."

As the ship changed its course, Jenosa stared down at the planet, hoping that her eyes might be able make any weird anomalies on the planet's surface, like a lightning flash of an ion cloud or storm. However, from the looks of the planet, it appeared untouched by anything like an ion storm, plus there didn't seem to be any kind of cloud activity on the surface. Everything seemed pretty tranquil, and the idea of electronic interference appeared to be more non-existent the longer she peered.

The visual silence was broken when she caught a flash of light emanate from the surface, and for a small second, thought there was actually a storm on the surface. However, the flash quickly turned into a pure white beam that lanced from one of the planet's continents at her ship.

Everything suddenly shook violently, as though it had just been bombarded with a small warhead, and the interior was filled with light that momentarily basked its detail from her eyes. Jenosa's reflexes kicked into gear as they always had, bending her legs and crouching in order to keep her balance, swearing with surprised but wincing eyes as she did.

In the midst of the rumbling, Jenosa yelled, "Woah, Magellan, wh-what's going on? What the heck's happening?"

"Vessel appears to be targeted by a high-intensity energy beam being launched from the coordinates of research lab 56. Searching data banks for beam specifications…negative, no information about beam specifications found."

Jenosa raised a brow of anger at this, "Since when do remote research stations carry high-intensity energy weapons. We're in the middle of Confederation space, miles away from the border." There was no doubt about, that research station possessed some kind of new planetary defense system, possibly a little project that the facility itself was working on. A beam of that magnitude couldn't have been constructed in a two-day's notice, and there was the huge fact that it seemed highly unlikely that anybody could even find this planet.

And yet, there was hostile intent lurking on that surface, and someone defiantly fired that beam.

Jenosa was half pissed and half worried, angry because she felt she not _informed_ properly, and worried that this new beam type could pose a threat to her and her actual life. The vessel could dish out quite a few blasts, but who knew what this new beam could do.

The rumbling and light subsided just as quickly as it had come, and everything reverted back to silence with only the rumbling to slowly dissipate from the ship and ears of Jenosa. "Commencing damage assessment," the A.I. chimed, and in only a few seconds it reported, "Assessment complete. Hull integrity stable, no internal structure damage detected. Currently scanning for anomalies within or around vessel."

"Largest concentration appears to be in the reactor core and aft storage," the A.I replied, "Proceed with caution."

Jenosa subtly ignored the words "Proceed with caution," as it was a reflexive A.I. phrase that they said every time when dealing with foreign creatures. She didn't need to given that phrase when doing her job, nor when she was blasting out critters. All that she needed to know where they were, and she wasn't afraid of anything big, bad or ugly; only in her childhood had she ever been afraid, and it was that general fear of things that made her who she was today.

It was strange, but while she didn't like traveling and doing jobs with a lackluster of detail, her body could not help revel in the odd satisfaction of exploring and facing the unknown. Even detailed information could not always save you from sudden, surprising, unforeseen threats, and she always made ready to deal with these threats, to be a reflexive and quick thinker. Quick wit was one of her skills that had gotten her through a lot of tough situations and missions, and it was probably that she enjoyed revealing she was a gal that could take care of herself without the need of big guns or brute strength. That she was an independent woman who could kick butt with style.

Or was it the fear, which bigoted anxiety to fill her head, that, without her knowing it, became a cocktail of enjoyment like the enjoyment created when in a roller coaster ride, flying high in the air while enthralled with the thrill of being so high up; and at the same time, anxiety of possibly falling to your doom, an emotion that strangely made it more joyous for certain riders.

Or, it could be the simple fact that you were beat your opponent in spite of the fact of how dangerous he, she or it was, mocking them after even during the fight despite how intimidating they are; the ability to mock your enemy by simply using it to motivate you.

Quite possibly, it could be a combination of both the former and latter.

Jenosa didn't know what it exactly could be and could care less for the reason. All that she knew was that despite the fact that she was mostly interested in getting paid, there were times when she enjoyed her work.

As she moved out of the front of the ship, she squeezed one of her arms in an attempt to discern how tough this body armor was, but was unable to get an accurate idea. _The guy did say this suit wasn't meant for heavy battles_, she thought, supposing this was more a lightweight armor. It was definitely light, that was for sure, but even she knew that light could be equally strong as heavy.

In which case, it wasn't like she was going to stand around and become target practice for the foe.

She walked into the transition corridor that connected to both aft storage compartments and the reactor, as well as the escape pod, which was hidden and locked off by a sliding hatch on the floor. It was a very convenient connecting root, as it ran into the main rooms of the ship. As Magellan said, all the doors to these rooms were all closed. On one of the walls of the octagonal room was a computer screen that could display information of all sorts, from the status of the ship's systems to scanner readings, and could be changed on voice command, assuming an A.I. was there to pick up your voice, or manually on the console.

She wasn't interested in looking into the screen, but what it was currently displaying about the ship's system status grabbed her attention. Certain systems and other minor sections of the ship were reporting 'ERROR', and while Jenosa knew a ship to have its own minor bugs, these were just too many and all too sudden.

She skipped closer to the screen and asked, "Magellan, what's going on with the ship? Why does it seem as though it's going on the fritz?"

"There appears to be several minor malfunctions occurring throughout the vessel, though analysis is currently inconclusive as to why. Critical systems have not yet been affected."

She growled a "Damn, it must have been that beam."

"Further more," the A.I. continued, "unknown bio-matter has contaminated the reactor. Security doors have been closed in an attempt to isolate the contamination."

"Peachy, I guess these critters want to make a nest out of my ship," she said with a drop of sarcasm. The door that led to where the reactor was technically led to an engineering sections; there were two rooms, the one the door in the cross section led to the first room containing the dual warp cores that propelled the ship faster-than-light, and that room connected to next room with the actual power supply.

She decided to the first take on the after storage compartments first, so clean out the little sections before they became a nest too, other wise she would have to deal with bigger problems. Once that was done, the reactor room would be a one-way route for the critters in it, her being the moving wall of death.

And from the looks of it, the effects of the beam appeared to be only doing superficial work. Rather minor systems such as radar gear and general computer terminals were wonky, but everything else including life-support appeared to be in working.

Even before she opened the door, she could hear the faint but constant _click-clack_ sound coming from inside the room, a tell-tale sign that she was dealing with insects of some sort. Her suspicions were justified as she came into the room to find the place crawling with brown centipede-like creatures, big and thick enough to be nearly the size of a man's chest, and gruesome enough to make regular women leap ten feet into the air and scream in fright like banshees.

As soon as she made her presence aware in the room, every single insect within the room, as if they were a single entity, stopped wondering around the room and immediately started towards her with intent in ripping her apart.

Muscles and reflexes tensed, Jenosa's arms immediately snapped up in front of her, guns pointed and aimed, and fired at the closest bugs first. She was met with a satisfying _splorch_ as, thanks to dual wielding, two bugs met their fate in between their obsidian black eyes. Their heads exploded in a green mess by two, quick, well-placed blaster shots; and even more so, immediately after the head was blown off – and in that split second, the bug looked pretty much dead from that shot – _more_ of the same green goo exploded out of the neck like a balloon being popped.

As she took precise aim at more bugs, Jenosa noticed out of the corner of her eye that the large splat of blood from her first two kills had an odd, dim glow emanating from them. 'Emanating', however, quickly became a word out of context as the glow _itself_ rose out of the goo like a ghostly light, though still retaining its green color. The light, mist, or whatever it could be called, condensed into two eerily pulsing globs that floated unsupported in the air; and could give a person the sense the two bugs was strangely still alive.

Jenosa breathed a short "What the hell?" before too many bugs were closing in on her position, and, knowing where there was a clear spot, jumped with powerful acrobatic skills, summer saluting in the air as she did. She had no clue what those strange globs were, but they were a couple of meters apart from her position and didn't seem to be making any sort of approach. Right now she was more preoccupied with giant centipedes attempting to crawl up her legs and into the wrong area.

"Hah!" she laughed. She had expected with the way all these bugs had responded to her for them to be a bit more sma-

"Gah!" she said in surprise as one of the bugs had leapt off of a tall, stacked pile of crates and landed on her right arm; apparently, it had actually decided to take a bit of its time in crawling up the crates. The creature, too wide for its leg to come together and clasp on Jenosa's arms, clung with the use of its large mandible by biting into her should. Although delayed at first, the strength of the creature caused the stiffness of the armor to collapse a bit, and she gritted her teeth as pain pierced her shoulder.

This posed a snag for her jumping abilities, as the creature weighed her down quite a bit, and made it damn difficult to move her arm, particularly since her should we being constantly pierced. Hence, she was shooting frantically, though with barely a drop of aim, to clear the rest of the bugs that were closing in on her; thankfully, there were only a few left.

The little time spent shooting gave the latching critter a chance to climb up her shoulders and have a shot at her head. She easily heard the chittering bug and nudged its head with the head of her gun just in time, but now without one of the mandible creating a scar on one of her cheeks; the bug was then immediately blasted, and gooey blood splattered on her suit, some of her hair and face, mixing with the blood that poured out of her newly received scar.

She wiped it off of her face while wincing, feeling the burning pain from the wound as her hands moved against it; she was going to have to get a med kit for it. Her shoulder also felt sore from being potently pinched, and was glad she had this suit, other she probably wouldn't have had an arm. Of course, she'd been through worse spots.

She made a small survey where she stood and everything seemed to be pretty much clear; however, the room was now filled with floating, pulsating green blobs that glowed. Before she had a chance to do or say anything else, the blob of the bug that she killed on her shoulder had already formed and was quickly drifting towards Jenosa far too fast for her to react. She only had enough time to see it out of the corner of her before it made contact with her shoulder and disappeared into one of the lightning-blue lines.

An abnormal tingling, pulsating sensation had entered her shoulder in an instant, and she could immediately tell that stuff was inside of her. "Magellan, what just went inside my body?"

"Accessing wireless suit interface…processing. Result inconclusive. Substance appears to be unknown energy; no known match on files. Suit sensors are registering a bio-synchronization occurring with the energy."

Even before the A.I. finished, Jenosa could feel the weird energy flowing throughout her entire body just like the energy of the suit had done when she first put it on. She was a bit freaked out at this; she was fine with surprise attacks and the like, but having something invading her own body and not knowing what it was a completely different. There was always a good chance whatever she foreign disease she caught could be the very death of her, and a possibly slow painful death too.

But, to her surprise, pain did not come, and, in fact, the complete opposite happened. The pain in her shoulder subsided, as if under the effects of a soothing balm. Even more so, and although the tingling sensation was becoming weaker as this strange energy spread through her body, when it reached her head, the searing pain of her scar was suddenly dulled, and upon feeling it, it barely felt open at all. It was almost like she had never been attacked the bug at all.

Magellan was ahead of her questions, as he chimed with, "Analysis complete. No side effects or dangerous properties detected. Energy capable of cellular reconstruction and repair, and appears to be synchronized with your biological structure. Suit appears to intake this energy through the same process used on standardized energy."

She blew a sigh of relief; glad she wasn't under any immediate danger, although she was unable to comprehend what Magellan meant by "Synchronized with biological structure." She did, however, understand that her suit was technically breathing in this enigmatic energy just like regular particle energy. To be honest, it was just weird to even wear this suit; never in her life did she expect to wear such a body wear.

Stepping forward from the wall, the rest of the pulsing globs of her fallen enemies flew toward her and into her, and with every bit slipping inside. She could feel her body merging with this energy inside of her; and as more came, more of it merged with her mind as well, just as the suit had merged with her thoughts. It was as though her awareness began to expand not just inside her body, but also into the suit.

She blinked, wondering what the hell was exactly happening to her body, or the suit at that. _Is this the virus that they were talking about? What the heck is it doing to me and my suit?_

"Magellan," she asked in a commanding voice, "can you land this puppy in the state that it's in. The sooner we reach the surface, the better." She didn't like when weird things began to get into her body and started making weird things happen in it, and she had a damn good hunch that the lab had answer to her burning questions.

"Negative," the A.I replied in a slightly distorted voice, "landing system currently malfunction. Ships systems malfunctions have become more spread out over the minutes. Unable to find source of disruption or method of counteraction. Only know method to surface of Inos is via the escaped pod, which is currently isolated from the rest of the ship's systems."

The red head cursed, not only at being unable to currently land, but at the way Magellan's voice was acting up. Whatever was hampering the ship's system, it had begun to affect the Magellan program, or at least the COMM systems. It was almost as if…the ship had caught the flu, she thought.

And things were obviously getting worse by the minute. Leaving by the escape pod only seemed like a last resort effort, one which Jenosa hoped not to use, but felt it might just come to that. This ship had supplies and weapons, and she wasn't about to give them up to the void of space so easily.

Virus or no virus, she needed to pick up the pace in cleaning up her ship. The longer she dawdled, the more these creatures would probably multiply, and the same could possibly go the "disruptions" within the ship.

She hefted herself to the other aft storage compartment, and easily cleared out the bugs in it. She attempted to avoid taking, or 'breathing', in the pulsing globs, but she was practically a magnet to them. Very few were left to dissipate.

By now, she felt her 'awareness' with her suit increase, and it came with every ball of energy she absorbed. What appeared to have been full connection with her suit when she first put it on now seemed like a minute thread that she shared with the suit's actual 'muscles' and 'nerves'; in other words, this connection appeared to have grown. The sensation and idea that this suit almost quite literally made up a part of her body intensified within her mind.

Jenosa was beginning to assume that this suit actually took in the virus and utilized it for beneficial purposes; yet she was finding it hard to believe that this energy could even be, less considered, a virus. They just had to be something else, but what, she couldn't guess.

And guessing wasn't on list of things to do right now. Nearly immediately after clearing the room, she headed to the reactor in a dash. She was ready for more shooting and more bugs, just like it was with some of her other intense hunting days; except this was far from the intensity of those days.

What stuck out on these warp cores, and what should even be there, was that there was a thick, purple tendrils crawling up the sphere's stand out of the floor grating, and connecting to it like some organic cable; it pulsed with a eerie glow.

Jenosa had seen _some_ forms of bio-matter and other methods use to make nesting areas, but she had never seen anything like this before. Whatever it was, she got a bad feeling that it had some kind of purpose, and that purpose had to with something about the warp cores. She shortly dispatched the wave of oncoming bugs, and, trying to ignore the strange energy that slipped into her body, she peered at the eerie tendrils, also noticing blotches of red goo on the holding section of the wrap core.

Beneath the level of the grating, Jenosa could clearly see that there was a thick, red ooze, like some kind of coagulated blood left to ferment, which pulsed with the same dim light like that of the tendril; it was as though this stuff was breathing. From what look liked the remnants of a popped, beige bubble came fourth the purple tendril. The goo of bio-matter, she noticed, was appeared to be coming all the way from where the reactor was. The reactor who's _security doors_ should have prevented.

Just then, Jenosa heard a weird buzzing sound from the warp core that put her on edge, for it was a sound that she had never heard a warp core make. The intercom came to life with Magellan's slightly distorted voice, "Power fluctuation detected in warp core. Warp directives overwritten. Receiving new warp coordinates. Initiating warping procedures."

Jenosa's eyes went wide with shock and incredulousness. The _hell_, they were _warping_. Without _her_ authorization. The hell they were. "Magellan, disengage the warp sequence. NOW!!"

"Negative," the A.I. complied, his voice becoming more distorted as time passed by, "unable to override commands. Standby for warping procedures."

She felt a bead of sweat formed by her increasing anxiety slide down her neck. This was bad. She was completely befuddled how the electronic disruption could, as if with purpose, seamless overwrite and input commands into the warp cores. _What kind of weapon is this?_ she thought, but almost immediately she saw the answer had been right in front of her the whole entire time, written on those purple tendrils.

_It wasn't the beam, it's these creatures. _They're_ the ones causing everything to screw up and taking control of my ship._ Jenosa didn't know how such stupid looking creatures get _any_kind of idea of driving her ship. She guessed Mother Nature just wired their brains recognize ship controls as a way to 'migrate'. How they could take 'hack' the ship so well was beyond her understanding though.

Either way, she had to get this over with, and fast, other wise she probably won't be in Oz anymore, or Kansas at that.

Magellan had apparently come to the same conclusion as she did, as he spoke his analysis that the spread of the bio-matter had only been slowed down, and that it was affecting or 'infecting' everything electronic it touched. His voice had become so distorted that it was becoming difficult to tell what he was exactly saying. Right now, though, she mostly ignored him and focused on the reactors.

She had a good hunch these tendrils were how these creatures were tapping into the warp core, and there weren't that many of them. Perhaps four for each, making a total of eight to kill. She decided to rip them off, knowing that shooting them would probably damage the reactor. Setting her guns into her holsters, she grabbed a completely exposed part of the tendril, her fingers getting covered in the red goo that surrounded it. She got the idea that she was actually going to feel a kind of gooey, sticky, moisturized texture about it with her fingers, as the suit felt like it was her own skin.

Surprisingly, she didn't, but even more surprising was that, instead, she felt, a bizarre energetic, pulsing sensation beat into her hands. She swore it was almost like the very energy she woke up with was being defiled somehow, but she didn't care right now. Right now, all she cared about was ripping this tendril apart in the next few seconds, as though it was a piece of webbing.

But yet, it didn't. Jenosa pulled with all her might, and though she was slightly stronger than an average woman, all the tendril did was bend a bit and continuously beat the strange sensation into her hands. It was much more robust than she anticipated, and the stuff wouldn't even come off of the metal that it was sticking it.

She let go, swearing as she did in her vain attempt that had cost her precious seconds. Seconds that not only counted down on the ship's launch, but on her life, for there was no telling when life support could be affected in certain areas. Hell, for all she knew it had been already affected, which only meant for another reason to hurry things up.

"Screw this," she said out loud in frustration. She grabbed her guns out of her holster, her hands dripping with small bits of red goo. If those tendrils connected to her reactor like a nerve, then those nerves had to be connected to a brain. That brain obviously had to be in the one place she hadn't been: the reactor core. Passing the second warp core, she came to the doors to reactor. The wall and rim around the door was being covered by the same, thick red bio-matter that was seen largely beneath the grating.

She gripped her heart in hopes that the door had not been affected, but to her frustration it didn't. And in her frustration she shot the door panel; to her relief it opened.

The reactor core was a relatively large, square room with terminals here and there. Surprisingly enough, it could also look like a completely empty room, and it often was unless there was need for maintenance. The reactor itself would often remain on level with the room floor, and could be thought as a part of the floor itself. Only when lifted would it be fully exposed.

Despite the reactor remaining in the floor, the room appeared to be quite crowded or 'smaller'. The same goo found on the warp cores was almost everywhere in the entire reactor floor. Nearly the entire reactor was gone from site, and directly over, appearing to be in the center and the source of the red goo, it was this gigantic, physically pulsing bulb. It had these large, vomit-yellow bulbs all over its red mass, though the red mass appeared to more of a substance to hold these bulbs together. These near-translucent bulbs glistened unnaturally, not only because they looked to be filled with a kind of liquid, but mainly because they seemed to dimly glow from within.

Each going at an angle from one another were these eerie, purple, extremely thick 'webbing', which ended only a couple of meters from the rising and declining bulb. They were the same exact material as the purple tendrils connecting to the warp cores. The site of it made it look like a plant mixed with a flesh of bizarre texture, a plant that seemed to have rooted itself to the reactor.

Jenosa felt a wave of anxiety flush into her heart. Never in her life had she ever encountered a creature like this. Of course she had seen some killer plants, and had entered a few big bug nests, and this and that hostile critter that threatened her life – along side a couple of humans who also attempted to blow her brains out. She had seen plenty of stuff, but this was like a twisted mix of a few creatures, and a dash of unimaginable creatures features that she could think of at all.

The matter that it had taken over her ship was pissing her off, and notion that a certain piece of vital information was withheld from her only added to the fire. It was the fact that she had no idea what she was dealing with that slightly worried her. That small worry evaporated almost instantaneously, though, as she remembered her former youth, before she became a bounty. She had gotten herself into a couple of sticky situations before hand, and it was partially her fault, too.

She wasn't a huge professional then like she was now, but she was street wise and a quick thinker. This all slowly came with experience, and yet she wasn't in any sort of combat training at all, or was planning to. Although she could have lived an average life like most people and not follow such a dangerous life, there were constraints upon that life that got on her nerves. Government, rules, restrictions, and her school life especially. Sure, she understood why rules and restrictions were place, and she was no rebel.

But then there was grade requirements she need for a job, at which she was completely hopeless at most of her courses. Not mainly because she sucked big time at them, but primarily because she lacked any kind of motivation whatsoever. School just wasn't for her, and those low-paying, part-times jobs at restaurants and the like weren't any better. In fact, she didn't have any kind of career in mind at all.

She had forsaken her 'average' life to break free from those hated constraints within any Confederation society. She knew the risks, and rather enjoyed running life on the wild side. She'd fight any obstacle to the last breath if she had to, and this situation was no exception.

She would have never had the time to break out some heavy fire arms, so she had to fire all what she had with her handguns. It surprisingly shrunk itself under fire, feeling the pain and emitting a gurgling growl from its surface. Concentrating her fire upon a single spot, hoping to penetrate deep enough to hurt a vital part. To her surprise, the bulb popped like a zit, splattering puss-like ooze all over the place.

Jenosa shield her face as it happened, although droplets of ooze still got onto her face and a bit of her hair. The touch of it gave off this penetrating, tingling sensation.

She only had a relieved face for about one second, for which it was followed by a growl of frustration. The egg or plant, or whatever it could be called had already hatch, it either prematurely or by her help. It looked the bulb had almost bloomed into this ugly plant with six, round, feature-less pacman-esque heads as fruit. Their skin was rough and purple, and, seen through their mouths, this skin appeared to be wrapped around what look like this hard sponge. This sponge or whatever it was, appeared to make up most of the heads' mass, giving hint that these creatures didn't seem to have any method of eating.

But the method of 'nutrition' appeared to clear to Jenosa, she recognized what appeared to these fleshy, roots attaching themselves to the floor. These roots brimmed and pulsed with the light of the reactor they were attached to.

She was dealing with some kind of parasite, she concluded. This had to be some kind of parasite. Any creature that latched onto something else to feed she considered a parasite. That's what parasites do. Yet, the bugs she fought didn't seem anything like this, yet they responded to her as though she was invading their lair.

Oh what did she care. This thing had already caused her enough frustration, and she'd shoot even if it were futile. What did she have to loose anyway?

She fired a flurry of shot, one of the heads closing their mouths, growling wobbly in pain. The first few shots didn't seem to do anything, and she noticed small, bright particles emitting from where she struck, floating away like cotton seeds and shortly dissipating. However, wounds began to quickly form, and her confidence rose.

"Ha, not so tough are you, you-"

She clicked her gun and it did nothing. She clicked the trigger again on both, and only got a single blast from one of them before they stopped entirely.

_Work, work, work. Why won't you work, dammit? Why now? Why do you have to break down _now? This wasn't good, she thought.

The injured alien, on the other hand, thought this _was_ good. Opening its mouth wide, it spewed this sickly green ball of translucent goo. Jenosa was quick though, and leapt out of the way like a graceful butterfly, yet she landed only to be flanked one of the other heads. It was as though she had been hit by giant loogey of thick mucus, as it was roughly the same size as her. The density and force it cam at was enough to nearly knocker her off her feet, but as a person who was extremely acrobatic, balance was one of the key traits to a successful landing, and she was able to recover it fairly quickly.

Yet it felt like her entire body had not just been soaked, but as though the substance itself had been absorbed into it. She could feel a sickly, tingling sensation flood her entire boy upon, and she groaned inwardly as she felt a large portion of her strength get sapped by what entered.

Reforming her posture, she leapt again over one of the large batches of purple tendons, landing in an area she knew only one of the heads could launch an attack at her. These things, from what she observed, didn't seem to be capable launching these globs at a quick pace, although the tingling sensation inside of her was still there, running through her veins not just like a poison, but as though it were her own blood and fluids. She could feel it sapping and burning her strength with every passing second, though the sensation was weakening too.

She ignored this as much as possible, although having killer fluids running inside her body always nagged her in a fire fight. Especially since it felt like no other poison she had injected, ingested or absorbed; not that she had ever been poisoned, but it sure as heck didn't feel like anything she had ever been inject or splashed with.

If it was one thing that was really bothering her, it was why her guns were being so stubborn all of a sudden. They just decided to go off on her right in the middle of a desperate situation, and these were brand new – _WHAT – THE – HELL!_

_Worse_, the thing seemed to be regenerating and _fast_ – it all happened when four more smaller bulbs, like the one that hose heads had been gestating in, began to inflate like balloons; each on the end a massive, purple root-like tendril. "Perfect…_just_ perfect," she said to herself in a low voice.

First a massive attack beam that should have happened; then her ship becomes boarded by critters that make a nest out of it; _then_ the ship begins to take a life of it's own and fly to who knows where; and _finally_, right when she needs them, her guns stop working the middle battle and the stupid plant was healing faster than you can blink an eye. What _else_ could go wrong?

Oh, and little slugs were starting to spawn out of the smaller bulbs.

Jenosa's mind raced against the clock, not really panicking more than actually momentarily confused – and you had to be confused for almost less than second on the job – and the filled with extreme frustration. Although she thought quickly on her options, somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew someone back at the station was going to pay.

Amidst the thinking, she thought she felt her heart beat slow down, which was extremely weird since she could still feel the adrenaline pumping inside of her. She even recognized the vague, fast-paced pulsing sensation in her temples; and yet, she could feel this distinct, almost alien drumbeating sensation inside of her body. She couldn't quite guess which part of her body it was coming from – although it vaguely felt like it was taking up a good portion of her body – she instinctively guess it was due to what the battle has set into mentally. She heard stories about soldiers in ware zone suddenly feeling momentarily deaf for no reason when they were caught in an intense fight; others that felt like time had slowed down when their death approached them, or saw one of their comrades go down before them.

Granted, she might have seen the death of one of her own compatriots, but she never been in a war zone surrounded by the sound of weapons fire. Maybe this wasn't as intense as up front war, but everything about her current situation to this feeling in her chest made her intuitively count it as a moment related to such situations. Considering the stakes and complete lack of options she had at her disposal, she it completely reasonable for this to happen.

Hell, the only thing she _could_ do was try to beat at it with her gauntlets and f-

_The gauntlets,_ she thought in realization, feeling completely stupid to having completely forgotten about. To her, they might have been no better than a pop gun, but she had to try something. Almost frantic, she searched with her mind for the ability to fire, fitting her will into the suit's weapon's systems like hand into a new glove. As the spheres of projectile energy ignited in hands, however, it felt like an added, extra set of muscles – albeit actually intangible – move and shift inside of her body.

At first, this felt like something new, but then a vivid sensation from a recent memory told her that this muscle had been there before; been there when she had put on the suit, maybe even before. She didn't know; what she did know was this 'muscles' had been much fainter, less easier to detect, but now it was like it had gotten stronger and more noticeable to her. She also noticed how much more energy the spheres pulsed with.

However, she only gave these new things a few seconds mental glance before turning her attention on the infestation. She could feel the seconds ticking away with every beating sensation inside of her body. She first took out the small bulbs, which burst like balloons in one easy shot – she had a hunch they were a part of the creature's ability to regenerate. Fending off the rest of the small critters, she began blasting the purple heads.

The whole thing actually became easy sport. The creature's aim was decent, but its behavior was predictable. She made a few jumps here and there, once or twice landing in the red carpet of goo. She never stayed on the stuff too long, primarily because it was thick and it sucked down on her suits foot ware like swamp mud; making it difficult to move around on.

There was also this warm, peculiar, pulsing sensation that emanated into her feet whoever she landed on it. While it didn't do anything immediately to her, the sensation unnerving; and the heart-like beating sensation inside her body gradually rose whenever she did. However, she did not pay any attention to this, as she was focused in destroying the last of the heads.

And she easily did. All that was left was a mound full of stems, and there was probably enough second left for her to issue an order to stop the warp sequence. She expected her A.I. to announce that control was once again within his digital hands, but all she heard was a loud electrical humming noise from the dual warp cores, and Magellan's warped, static message: "Warnin--g: St-ructural integrity ----of the cont-ainment –fields --compromised."

On cue, two heavy, glass crackling explosions, one after the other, could be heard from the warp core room. The sound was deafening and Jenosa whirled around to see that the purple floating orbs inside the glass spheres were gone; and the glass itself was cracked all over. To her even bigger surprises, red warning lights and warnings alarm were suddenly blaring, and a loud audible creaking could be heard through out the entire ship.

"Mul---tiple breache-s detected ----in outer hulls. All – pers-onnel evacuate im-mediately. Rep—eat. All personnel---- evacuate immediately.

The bounty hunter swore at the top of her breath. Her day couldn't have gotten any worse. She bolted through the ship as fast she could, dodging through the hot, venting steam and falling debris. As she ran to the escape pod, she ignored how big the beating sensation had gotten inside of her.


End file.
